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Siena, Italy’s medieval heart and soul

The full beauty of life in historic Europe is made real in this stunningly well preserved town

The atmospheric delis in Siena's old town make a fun stop. (Rick Steves)

By Rick StevesSpecial to the Star

Fri., Oct. 4, 2013

Stretched across a Tuscan hill, Siena offers Italy’s best medieval city experience. With red-brick lanes tumbling every which way, the town is an architectural time-warp, where pedestrians rule and the present feels like the past.

Most people are content to see Siena on a day trip from Florence, but it’s worth a longer visit.

Florence may have the big-time museums, but Siena was made for strolling.

Staying at a little family-run inn in the old town centre, I feel like an honorary Sienese.

Five hundred years ago, Italy was the centre of humanism. Today, the self-assured Sienese remember their centuries-old accomplishments with pride. In the 1300s, Siena was one of Europe’s largest cities and a major military force, in a class with Florence, Venice and Genoa. But, weakened by a disastrous plague and conquered by her Florentine rivals, Siena became a backwater for six centuries.

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Siena’s loss became our sightseeing gain.

Its political and economic irrelevance preserved its Gothic-era identity, most notably in the form of its great, gorgeous central piazza, the Campo.

People hang out as if at the beach at this tilted shell-shaped “square” of red brick.

It gets my vote for the finest piazza in all of Europe.

Most Italian cities have a church on their main square, but the Campo ranges around Siena’s city hall, symbol of rational government, and a 330-foot municipal tower (open for climbers).

Nowadays, the city hall tends a museum collection of beautiful paintings, including a master work by hometown master Simone Martini. The 14th-century town council met here in the Saladella Pace, or “Room of Peace,” under frescoes designed to remind them of the effects of bad and good government. One fresco shows a city in ruins, overrun by greed and tyranny. The other depicts a utopian republic, blissfully at peace.

If the Campo is the heart of Siena, the Duomo, or cathedral, is its soul. Sitting atop Siena’s highest point and visible for miles around, the white and dark-green striped church is as over-the-top as Gothic gets. Inside and out, it’s lavished with statues and mosaics. The heads of 172 popes peer down on all those who enter.

Great art, including Michelangelo statues and Bernini sculptures, fills the church. Nicola Pisano carved the wonderful marble pulpit in 1268. It’s crowded with delicate Gothic story-telling details. You can get up close to study the scenes from the life of Christ and the Last Judgment.

Hiding between the Duomo and the Campo are intriguing back streets, lined with colourful flags and studded with iron rings for tethering horses. The flags represent the city’s neighborhood associations, or contrade, whose fierce loyalties are on vivid display twice each summer during the Palio, a wild bareback horse race around the Campo, held July 2 and Aug. 16 every year. (Don’t show up without a hotel reservation if you hope to stay overnight!)

Because Siena’s steep lanes go in anything, but a straight line, it’s easy to get lost. But there’s no rush to get found.

As you wander, you’ll be tempted by Sienese specialties in the shops along the way: gourmet pasta, vintage Chianti, boar prosciutto, extra virgin olive oil, and panforte.

If you don’t think of panforte as fruitcake, you might like it.

Some bakeries claim their recipes for this chewy concoction of nuts, honey, and candied fruits date back to the 13th century. Some even force employees to sign non-disclosure agreements to ensure they won’t reveal the special spice blend that flavours the dense cake.

It’s especially wonderful to be out and about in Siena in the evening, after the tour groups have left for the day.

I like to take advantage of the aperitivo hour. Bars tucked here and there attract an early crowd by serving a free buffet of food with the purchase of a drink. It’s a light dinner obtained for the cost of a beverage.

After a quick aperitivograze, I feel primed and ready to join the passeggiata, the evening stroll. I try to time my arrival at the Campo just at that magical moment when the sky is the same twilight hue as the rustic stones of the square.

As the Campo fills with people-watchers, I linger near the Renaissance water feature called the Fountain of Joy. Siena’s residents used to gather here to exchange gossip while filling their water jugs, and it’s still a meeting point for tourists and locals.

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